


Our heads could do with filling

by horoscorpio



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Lily Evans, James Potter is a Good Friend, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Work In Progress, no terfs here, smuttiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2020-09-30 16:44:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20450318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horoscorpio/pseuds/horoscorpio
Summary: There is a story about a magical world full of witches, wizards, and other fantastic beings. This is like that story, but it's more concerned with Lily Evans.





	1. Chapter 1

==================

The local park was still, as if in a tableau of a mild June day. A light breeze added to the pleasantness. Two girls were lying side-by-side on the grass, basking in the quiet. Then the younger one, all knobby knees and tangled hair and green eyes, sat up and crisscrossed her legs. The pretty weed she'd been pulling at grew and wrapped itself around her hands. She shaped it into a wreath. Smiling at her creation, she held it out to her sister.

Blonde, older, and in charge, she snapped her eyes open, “Stop it. Do you want me tell mum?” 

The younger one sighed before breathing out a small "no," and tossing the crown away from herself, towards the trees.

A boy bounded out from the edge of the trees, crown of flowers in hand, “Brilliant – this is great magic!”

Both girls startled; it seemed like the boy had come from nowhere.

The younger one recovered first and grinned at the compliment, “Thanks. I can make you one if you’d like.”

The boy nodded eagerly. 

The girl swept her hands over the ground, turning grass and mulch into bright flowers of astounding, if unnatural, hues. When she opened her hands, it drew the flotsam and jetsam into the shape of a crown. The boy sat down on the grass next to her, transfixed, and she placed it on his head. The unruly arrangement matched his uncombed hair.

The older girl stood up, brushed off her skirt, and stomped off. Two sets of eyes followed her as she left the park, turned onto the road, and walked away.

Anxiously pulling at the grass, the girl sighed. “She doesn’t like when I play like this.”

“Do you do it often?” he asked, eyeing the grass as it changed from green to yellow to red under her touch.

“A lot more lately, yeah.” She tracked his gaze to the patch of grass she’d been toying with. 

“Sorry, I’ll put it right,” and she held her hands over the offending blades as they went back to their original green. 

“That’s really cool,” he said, looking impressed. “I get tired if I do too much magic.” 

“Magic.” She giggled. “I like that.”

“What else can you do?”

“Only the trick with the flowers, and sometimes the one with the grass. Nothing with cards or coins or hats.”

“Erm…” The boy eyed her uncertainly, “You don’t do magic?” 

“Just this stuff,” gesturing at the grass, the crown she’d made him.

“But you’re not a muggle, right?” He looked apprehensive, and the question seemed to be important to him. 

She hesitated, like she didn’t want to give the wrong answer. “No, of course not.”

The boy smiled at her, relieved. “Thank Merlin.”

The girl frowned at that, looking pensive. She fiddled with the grass for a moment, maybe considering a bluff. Resolved, she looked back at the boy and asked, “What’s a muggle?”

He hesitated. “If you don’t know, then I’m not supposed to say…” He clearly wanted to say.

The girl looked just as eager. “I won’t tell anyone.”

He did a quick scan of the park and took a deep breath before saying, in a hushed voice, “Ok, well, you see, some people are muggles and some are witches and wiz —”

“LILY EVANS!” someone shouted, calling for the girl. 

They both jumped at the sound, and then Lily was on her feet, running towards her summons. Over her shoulder she called, “You’ll tell me tomorrow?” 

“Okay!” the boy yelled back, enthusiastic, his hands reaching up to play with the crown of flowers in his hair. 

=======

“You can’t keep coming home dirty! Petunia says you were playing in the mulch again; it stains your clothes, and who has to wash those stains? Me. And Lily, just look at your fingers.”

Her mum held her hands up in front of her eyes, and Lily supposed there was a fair bit of dirt under her nails.

But she could hardly hear the lecture; her mind had been racing all evening. What had that boy been saying? He liked her flowers, her magic trick. And he did magic tricks too. And some people were witches? No, surely not. Some people were whizzes. That made more sense. Like at maths or chess, and maybe she was a whiz at magic tricks. 

Later, after her mum insisted on scrubbing her nails with a brush that kind of hurt and Petunia gloated for getting her in trouble, Lily fell asleep. In her dreams, she won a trophy that said magic whiz. She stood on a stage and noticed the boy from the park whistling and clapping, the crown of flowers in a precarious perch on his head.

=======

“Wizards,” he clarified, the next time she saw him. 

The boy - James Potter - lived nearby, was a wizard, and was pretty sure that she was a witch. 

Lily was pretty sure that he was telling a detailed and unfunny joke. 

“Magic isn’t real.”

“Of course it is.”

It went on like this for a while, until Lily decided arguing wasn’t worth it. The silent treatment would work until he was done messing with her.

Only James seemed to mean it. “It’s true! I’m not lying. I can’t - even if I wanted to. My mum jinxed me so it makes my nose twitch," he said, impossibly earnest. 

“Ok, Pinocchio.”

James didn’t get the reference. 

Lily didn’t think he was lying, exactly, but she definitely didn’t believe him. 

Yet she quite liked the idea of magic. 

Some of what James had said seemed familiar from stories, so that night she knelt down in her room, looking through all her books for any mention magic. She read and re-read passages about witches, paused at any and all mention of warlocks or wizards. She wondered about other fantastic things, like giants and fairies and elves. 

The next day, she brought a book to the park.

“See,” she said, handing James her copy of The Wizard of Oz, “it just sounds like make-believe.”

A few days later, she found James sitting near the shady tree, incredulous. “That was the silliest story I’ve ever read. Here, have some real stories.” 

He lent her a book of magical fairy tales, each sillier than the last.

=======

A few weeks later, after an oppressive heat wave had broken, he sat in the shade waiting for her. His hair was messier than ever and his glasses kept slipping from his nose, slick with sweat.

“This is awful,” he grumbled, pushing his glasses up with the energy of a three-toed sloth.

“Not as awful as being stuck inside with Petunia.”

James flopped himself down on his back, maybe hoping gravity would take over the continual chore of adjusting his glasses, “I’m always alone when I’m stuck inside.”

Lily didn’t quite know what to say to that. 

“We’re going away for the rest of the summer. It’s going to be like being stuck inside every day,” he said, glum.

“Don’t sound so sad about a vacation. I’ll bring you some more books. Real ones. They’ll keep you company.”

“Books can’t keep you company.”

“Of course they can.”

=======

It was a long, hot summer; a string of days melting into each other. 

Lily was by turns bored and lonely, and she missed her new friend. But she was free to roam, to read the books James had given her, and to wonder if magic could be real. She played with flowers, making crowns for herself, just checking that she still could. She skipped rocks in the pond that sat between her house and the park, climbed trees, and otherwise stomped around her little town. 

So immersed was she in the daily puzzle of alleviating her boredom that she didn’t question why she was free to roam about, why her mum didn’t yell at her for playing with flowers, or why Tuney didn’t go spare when she climbed the tallest tree in the park. 

Her rude awakening came one day when she walked along her usual path and nearly stepped on a snake. It was startled by her appearance, rapidly uncoiling itself to slither away from her. But the snake’s attempt to leave Lily be didn’t matter; the damage had been done. Snakes were Lily’s greatest fear. Adrenaline and terror clashed within her gut, clamoring for her attention. She turned on the spot, ready to run all the way home. But instead of sprinting away as fast as her legs could carry her, she felt herself hurtle through the air. She was being squeezed; she was going to suffocate; and then she was in front of her house, her stomach rolling, hysterical sounds escaping her.

Petunia came out of the house, an angry expression on her face. “Be quiet!” When Petunia slapped her and Lily’s shouts turned to tears, she was certain someone would come comfort her; her mother, surely, was just inside; or her father, maybe, he’d been home all summer too.

“You’re ruining his rest! And we’ve just finally gotten him to sleep.”

What a bizarre way to talk about her father. He wasn’t a baby taking a nap. She opened her mouth to say as much but Petunia cut her off, clapping a bony hand over her lips.

“You selfish, silly girl. Daddy is sick and trying to rest but he can’t while you’re carrying on about God-knows-what. Go run off to the park and roll around with that boy!”

She dashed past Petunia, tuning out her tirade, and hurried up the stairs to see her father. Within the week, it became clear just how very ill he was. She helped her mother and sister care for him, ferrying tea or soup or medicine up and down the stairs. Lily stayed inside all day, and no one asked how she had managed to fill his room with flowers without leaving the house. 

August passed in a sad, hot haze, and then it was September, time for Petunia and Lily to return to school. But they were going to be at different ones now, with Lily still at the local primary and Petunia moving over to the secondary. Lily’s mother said in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t do it; she simply couldn’t run around the country dropping one daughter someplace, the other somewhere else, and then fetch them. Not while caring for her dying husband. 

Petunia went to school that fall. Lily didn’t. Petunia seemed jealous, but Lily was beside herself; she was sure that she could feel her brain shrinking. She tried to comfort herself with the idea that magic could fix it.

=======

One day, Lily stepped out to water a small row of plants behind her house and saw James walking down her street. 

He greeted her loudly, cheerily.

“Not here.” She grabbed his hand and led him towards the park.

“You know, I won’t melt if we talk outside of the park.” He wore a small smile, like he was trying not to laugh at his own joke. 

“You know, melt? Like the witch? In that book about Oz you gave me?”

She nodded and tried to flash a smile; it felt like a grimace.

“Anyway, I missed you loads! When can you come over for tea?”

“Probably not until after my dad dies.” She hadn’t meant to say it like that, but she hadn’t really talked to anyone since James left. It struck her that perhaps she’d forgotten how, and now she was a rude person.

His smile vanished, and James looked sad for the first time since she’d met him. It didn’t suit him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She was about to say no, but instead, she talked about it. For a long time. Apparently, now that she had someone willing to talk to her and not just at her, she had plenty to say. 

The words tumbled out of her in a confused rush. They leaned against the shady tree as she she talked about how sick her dad was; how scared she was; how much accidental magic she'd been doing. 

“I told him about my magic tricks. He thought I was being funny. But then last week he dropped a glass and I... kind of floated it back to him. I think he believes me now.”

Lily talked until she felt empty, all of her words used up. 

“I dunno, Lily,” he said, picking at some blades of grass. “I just whine about being bored, or not having the broom I want, or having to practice calligraphy. I feel stupid now.” 

“You shouldn’t. Problems are problems. I saw a snake last month and that was still one of the scariest parts of my whole summer.”

“You don’t like snakes?”

“I hate them.”

He grinned, “Brilliant. You won’t be in Slytherin, then.”

And she let James distract her with an animated explanations of Slytherin (“Serpents, the lot of them,”), the school of magic (“Oh Merlin, I forgot you don’t know about Hogwarts!”), and quidditch (“I should have told you about this the first day we met, really,”).

She felt better as the day went on, and was almost cheerful by the time James mentioned that he didn't go to school either. 

“My mum tutors me. She’ll want to tutor you, too, once she meets you.”

She felt something lighten within herself at the idea of going to school, then a beat of uncertainty. “Does she tutor you in magic?” 

“Nah - it’s writing and reading and Latin and civics and maths. Boring stuff. But it’ll be better with you around.”

Lily didn’t know how to break it to James that she wasn’t all that entertaining. He spared her the need, describing what they’d do during their free time, and how his mother could teach her about magical plants, and his dad would definitely do the exploding potion lesson again for her.

She let James describe a nice, happy world to her. She could almost even picture herself in it.

=======

On the day that James brought Lily to his house for tea, she met a very surprised Euphemia Potter. 

James’s mother had been expecting an imaginary friend. 

Shock painted across her features, she apologized profusely, “Sorry dear, I just assumed he was playing pretend. He’s always had an active imagination.” 

James was mortified. 

Mrs. Potter paid him no mind as she continued to stare at Lily - she tried and failed to stifle a smile, covering her mouth with her hand. 

“I can’t believe that every time he said, ‘Mummy, I’m off to meet my friend Lily,’ he was actually off to meet his friend Lily.”

“Erm --"

Euphemia cut off her attempt at a response, assuring her, “Of course it’s splendid, really. The only issue is our set up,” she said as she led them outside.

The garden was set up for an imaginary tea party, with stuffed animals around a low table and an empty toy kettle in the middle. 

Euphemia laughed and laughed, looking between Lily and the table. She kept trying to compose herself and then giving up. James’ face was bright red. 

“Now love, don’t be embarrassed. It was my mistake, not yours.”

“I’m not!” he replied, though his reflexive scratch at his nose rather gave him away. “It’s just that we don’t have any tea out.” He hurried inside, first making a grab for an elephant with one ear and clutching it tight to his chest.

“Oh my,” Mrs. Potter sighed, finally sobering a bit, “I’ve ruined his day.” Then, conspiratorially, “But it’s a laugh, isn’t it?”

Lily wasn’t so sure. “Unless James never looks me in the eye again.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Erm. Well. James is really nice. My only friend, really, and a good one, too. But he’s a bit…” she trailed off, regretting the direction of the conversation. She needed Mrs. Potter to like her, to want to teach her! God, the summer had turned her into a rude shut-in.

“Go on, dear" 

“Erm. He's a bit… fragile. And sensitive, and...” She cast about for other polite words to use until a huff of air from Mrs. Potter’s direction spared her the effort. 

“More like spoiled, with a big ego.” Lily was surprised; she was used to hearing lists of negatives from her mother, but Mrs. Potter said it all gently and with great amusement. It was less like complaining, more like cooing.

“So, you’re a muggle born?”

Lily nodded.

“Does your family know you’re a witch?”

She shrugged, instantly shy. “I don't hide it.” 

Mrs. Potter stayed quiet, like she was waiting for a more detailed explanation. Lily tensed. Mercifully, Mrs. Potter let the subject of family drop. 

James came back out to the garden. “The tea will be ready soon.” 

“Don’t take credit for it, James.”

“I’m not! But Lily doesn’t know about house elves.”

“So tell her about them.”

“House elves are elves that help around the house, and we have one, and she's making the tea,” he recited.

Lily blinked at the new information. Up to this point in her life, elves had loomed large in one context. “So elves really do build toys at the North Pole?”

James, curious, “What’s the North Pole?”

Mrs. Potter looked between the two of them, and clapped her hands. “Right then, lots to learn from each other. Lily, what magic have you done? 

“Loads!” James piped up, describing all that she’d shown him.

Mrs. Potter - Euphemia, she insisted - asked for a demonstration of some of her tricks.

“That’s wonderful! And you don’t even look tired. You’ll make quite the witch. Just don’t show off around other kids. Only Jamie.”

“Jamie!” she sang, teasing him. James made a face at her, she stuck her tongue out at him. 

Their hijinks made Euphemia laugh, a melodic trill of a thing. 

Later, when James went inside to help his house elf clean up their tea, Euphemia looked at her, eyes sparkling, “Did I mention I’m glad that you’re real?”

By the time she left that afternoon, Lily was sure that the Potters were magical.

=======


	2. Chapter 2

Mr. Evans died on a Tuesday afternoon, and Lily kept to the house for days. 

On the fifth day of her seclusion, Lily was in her room reading when she heard a strange sound at her window. 

Hope surged up to overtake reason, and she was sure it was the hummingbirds. 

The day after her dad died, she’d hung a feeder out by her window. It’d gone untouched, which made sense given that hummingbirds didn’t exactly populate West Country.

But she couldn’t help but want them to visit. 

How could she not, when months prior her dad had asked her, mischievous, “What’s a group of hummingbirds called?” 

They’d done this sometimes - enough that she knew it was a posse of turkeys, a muster of storks, a gaggle of geese.

“A peck?” she’d guessed.

A smile had crinkled his eyes, “Even better, Lilibet. A charm of hummingbirds.”

Even a charm, though, wouldn’t make a noise like the one tapping outside her window.

Lily drew back the curtain. She didn’t find a posse or a gaggle or a charm, but a lone owl - large, grey, and seemingly intent on getting her attention. Disappointed and a little spooked, she moved back from the window, deciding to leave her room altogether.

She walked into the hall. The door to Petunia’s room was open - a rarity - and she was crying on her bed. 

Lily didn’t blame her. Their mother had said it so bluntly the night before, just a quick, “We’re moving. I can’t live here anymore, not without your father.”

But Petunia didn’t want to commiserate with Lily. If anything, she’d been avoiding her all day. 

Lily suspected it had something to do with her reaction to the news, which had been an immediate request to stay behind on her own. 

“Please, please," she'd all but begged, "this way I can keep up my tutoring, and I won’t bother you or Tuney at all, and I’ll tend to Dad’s garden, and Aristocat won’t go hungry, and—” 

Her mother had cut her off with a slap.

“The bloody stray is more important to you than your sister and me?” 

Lily hadn’t dared to respond truthfully.

Now, Lily had to make sure Petunia wouldn’t stay cross with her forever. She stood in her doorway, earnest, “I didn’t mean it, not really. I wouldn’t leave you alone with her.”

Petunia didn’t move, keeping her face buried in her bedding as she managed to say - quite clearly -, “I would leave you.”

“I know. But I love you more than you love me. Because of Daddy. He gave me his love for you.”

“What?” Petunia asked, lifting her face to look at Lily.

“He told me to hold onto it for him, and to give it to you when you need it.”

Petunia looked like she might run at her and do something wild, like hit her. Instead, she grabbed her door and slammed it shut.

Lily blinked, then went back to her room to check on the hummingbird feeder. It remained empty. The owl was gone.

The next day, the phone rang.

Her mother answered it and Lily expected to hear the usual response to people’s condolences. Instead, she heard a yelp and looked over to see her mother leaning back, holding the phone far away from her head.

Her mother slammed the phone down and then turned to Lily, “Why did someone just prank call, shouting for you?”

Petunia was ready with a nasty response, “It’ll be that stupid boy she’s always hanging around.” But Lily noticed that it was weak for her, like her heart wasn’t really in it.

Later on, the phone rang, and Lily sprinted over to it. It was hardly even off the hook when she heard her name. 

“James, talk softer,” she tried to say, but he was so loud with his, “LILY. LILY? CAN YOU HEAR ME? IS THIS YOU?”

“Speak quietly!” she all but yelled into the phone.

“SORRY!” He said, softer than before but still far too loud.

“More quietly.”

“This. Is. Weird!” He was still loud and stilted, but no longer at a shout. It’d have to do.

“Did you get my letter?” he asked.

“No,” then she remembered the owl at her window. “Maybe?”

“What do you mean ‘maybe’? Either Leto gave it to you or she didn’t.”

“Is Leto an owl?”

“Of course Leto is an owl, and a trusted member of the family besides.”

She sighed. Communicating with James was hard enough face-to-face, always full of these fantastic explanations and the feeling that he was having her on, her making him promise he was telling the truth and then waiting to see if he broke into a smile or scratched at his nose.

“Can I come over?”

James had just started to say yes, of course, no problem, his mum was making broccoli but if Lily didn’t like it she probably wouldn’t make her eat it when her mother stormed over and wrenched the phone out of her hand. 

“Don’t call here again, shouting for Lily, racking up a bill!” 

Lily felt badly that her mother had hung up on James, but soon much worse for herself when she didn’t have such an easy escape from her mother’s anger. 

A few days later, the phone rang while her mother was out of the house. 

She picked it up and heard James’s voice. 

“Lily!” His volume was almost normal.

“Jamie! You’re getting good at this,” amused.

“Yeah!” He sounded pleased with himself, but then again he usually did. “Sorry if I got you in trouble.”

“Don’t be,” she dismissed, “I can hardly breathe without getting yelled at these days." 

James laughed, but Lily hadn’t been joking.

She fiddled with the phone cord and carried on, "Am I getting you in trouble now? Where are you?”

“Nah, Mum said I could go into town and call you, so long as I didn’t owl again. Wasn’t too thrilled with me that I sent Leto…" Then, disbelieving, "Can you really hear me like this?”

“Loud and clear."

Apparently Petunia could hear them too. Her cold hand was suddenly firm around Lily’s wrist, pulling on it, trying to hang up the phone. Lily resisted Petunia's pull in a silent but furious tug of war. 

Lily felt something flare in her chest - she just wanted to talk to her friend, to feel something other than miserable for two seconds, to let him know what had happened! - and dug her heels into the ground.

A moment later Petunia recoiled, clutching her arm. Quietly and dangerously she spat, “Did you electrocute me?” 

“No!” Lily insisted.

“Lily?” James’s voice floated out from the phone.

"Hang on a minute,” she told James before covering the mouthpiece.

“Not on purpose,” she looked down at the ground, then back up at Petunia’s angry, suspicious eyes, “I didn't mean to. I’m sorry.”

Petunia wasn’t appeased. “Do what you want, you crazy little witch. But Mummy’s going to figure it out, and when she does -” she trailed off, apparently struggling to put into terms exactly what awful punishment would await Lily. “You’ll be on your own,” and with that, she left the kitchen. 

Lily managed to arrange a meet-up with James, but spent the better part of the night lying awake, trying and failing to ignore the truth of Petunia’s words.

When she got to the park the next morning, James was there waiting, apprehensive.

“Your dad, he… It happened?”

Lily nodded.

James went to hug her, stiff and awkward, but like he was going to do it anyway if he thought it would help. She released him quickly.

“My mum says that we’re moving.”

They were both quiet for a long time.

Eventually, Lily turned a patch of grass an ugly red-brown and knelt down, plucking each altered blade out of the ground, angry. James joined her. 

After a bit she voiced one of the many things bothering her, “How awful is it that I’m sad about that, instead of just about my dad?”

James paused his crusade against the red grass to say, earnest, “I think people can be sad about lots of things at once.”

Lily, her heart heavy with so many different things, found that she agreed.

They saw each other one last time to say goodbye. It was wretched.

“We’ll be at Hogwarts in no time,” James was full of positivity, trying to perk Lily up.

“It’s years away…” She felt like Eeyore, but there was nothing to be done for her dour mood.

“Believe me, this is the closest it’s ever been,” James said, intense.

“Yeah?” she asked, not up to long replies. 

He shrugged, “I started counting when I was four.”

And as a parting gift, James lent Lily his copy of Hogwarts: A History. 

“Since I won’t be able to talk you ear off about school. This way you’ll know what to expect. You can read about the moving staircases for yourself.”

It turned out to be very hard to say goodbye when neither person wants to leave. But eventually, they managed it. 

When she got into her bed that night - her last one in her own room, in her home - she opened the book to check the glossary for ‘moving staircase.’ Surely James was having her on with that one. Only he wasn’t. They really did move, another impossible fact of magic.

Lily flipped back through the book and gasped. The author had signed the book with a note that read, ‘To James - You are a kind boy. This is, historically speaking, a rare achievement. Keep on as you are. - Bathilda’

====

As far as Lily could tell, there were no kind boys in Cokeworth. No kind people of any sort, really. The whole town bordered on unpleasant. There was a park, and there was a boy who hung out around it, but Lily didn’t go there much. 

The lone improvement was that she was able to go to school. Petunia's secondary was just across the street from Lily's primary school, and they walked together most days. 

Things between them were better but not great. Lily took an advanced maths class in Petunia’s building a few days a week. Petunia ignored her in the halls, hiding away in pockets of students. But there was no avoiding each other in their new home - they shared a bedroom. Lily found Petunia’s light snores comforting. When she told her as much, Petunia looked stricken, “I do not snore.” 

“Right. Of course not. It was a bad joke,” Lily allowed, eager to avoid a fight. 

The move hadn't done much for Lily’s mother. She was every bit as sad as she’d been in their old home, and if anything seemed more prone to wild changes in her mood. She and Petunia both did their best to avoid the house. They joined clubs, played on teams, performed in plays - anything to stay out. Summer was a never-ending series of long, hot days that saw them stuck at home.

A year passed, empty and sad, but at least it had gone by. By James’s logic, the start of Hogwarts was the closest it had ever been. By her own more pessimistic reasoning, the whole thing could be a lie, a prank, a gag, and Lily might have to live in Cokeworth until the great old age of 18.

All the while, Lily had dreams of magic - in some she flew, cast spells, did incredible things; in others she broke objects apart, failed to conjure sparks, fell into despair. 

Changes came, of course. Mortifyingly for Lily, some of hers were bodily. She was pretty sure that no one else in her class had their period. Petunia had hers but didn't know much more about handling it than Lily did. A quick read of the book their mother had offered Petunia the previous spring explained why; it was utterly boring and profoundly unhelpful. Lily was suddenly tall, the tallest student in her year. Her shoulders hunched in a bid blend in, but she never quite managed it.

Moodiness clung to their house - in truth, maybe to the entire, sad town - and none of the Evans were free from it. But magic gave Lily an intractable hope. She held onto it tightly, but tried not to examine it too closely or too often, for fear it would wither or fade or disappear altogether. 

====

It all became more real, as James promised it would, with a piece of post. Her letter came on the day of an enrichment exercise that kept her at school late. By the time Lily got home, her mother had opened the letter addressed to Ms. L. Evans, Lefthand Bed, Upstairs Bedroom. Lily endured a rant about how much her mother hated joke letters and how foolish it was to lie to her and she knew this had to do with that Potter boy and his mother’s tutoring scheme, but she wouldn’t be hoodwinked. Lily didn’t interject, not even when her mother said nasty things, not even when she tried (and failed) to rip the letter in two, not even when she threw it in the bin. 

Petunia pursed her lips, making them smaller than Lily thought possible, but didn’t say anything. Eventually, their mother’s yelling stopped. 

Lily laid in bed that night, waiting for her and Tuney’s room to fall still and quiet. Once it had, she snuck down to the kitchen, finding the relatively clean letter and tucking it into the waistband of her pajamas. 

Torch in hand, she scampered back into her bed and unfolded it, ready to have a proper if dimly lit look at, when a whisper startled her. 

“So it’s beginning, then?” 

Petunia hadn’t sounded so vulnerable around Lily since a few years prior when they’d convinced themselves that the frogs croaking outside Petunia’s window were aliens. They’d crept down the stairs, relieved to find their father still up, reading. They’d explained the situation, breathless, clutching at each other. 

“Aliens? Are you both certain?” their father had asked. 

“Yes!” they’d cried in unison, so sure. 

"Then you two should to sit with me for a bit, until they decide there are more interesting things on Earth than our garden."

Lily had been more confident about the aliens than she was now about her place at Hogwarts. 

“I think so,” was her quiet answer. 

She held the letter and the light out over the side of her bed, Petunia reached out and took it. 

Lily was a little impatient; it was her letter and she really wanted to read it because it might mean that it was happening, really happening, and the doubt James and his stories about magic and the weird things she did sometimes hadn’t been able to erase might actually go away now. 

Petunia handed it back to her a while later, “It doesn’t look like they teach maths.”

After reading it over for herself (so often over the following days that she knew it by heart), she was forced to agree with Petunia’s assessment. But she supposed that there were things in life more exciting than maths. 

A few days later, the phone rang. Petunia answered it. “There was no one there,” she told their mother, sounding annoyed.

That night, lying in their beds, Lily summoned the nerve, “So on the phone earlier, was it -” 

“Obviously,” she snapped.

She intended to call him back, but her mother was in the kitchen, and seemed to remain there no matter how late it got, so James’s call went unanswered. 

The next day - Saturday - everything changed with the noontime arrival of Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

She introduced herself and Lily stood in awe. This was the author of her letter.

"You must be Lily," Professor McGonagall said, offering her hand. "I'm friendly with the Potters, and James spoke of you ceaselessly the last time I visited.” She was tall, dressed in a style similar to the one Euphemia favored, and thoroughly Scottish.

As Professor McGonagall explained about Hogwarts, Lily’s mother listened with a glazed over look that was less a part of her reaction and more a symptom of her hangover. It was Petunia, her posture straighter then ever, whose attention was fully on the professor. 

When Professor McGonagall's words finally registered with Mrs. Evans, her reaction was stupendous. Lily was nonplussed by the behavior, Petunia too, but Professor McGonagall was alarmed enough that she offered to take the girls to the Potter's for the rest of the afternoon while Mrs. Evans processed the news. That, it turned out, was the wrong thing to say. 

"The Potters! Who are these bloody Potters? Spies? I knew there was something funny about them," rounding on Lily, "And you! What did you get yourself caught up in? And why is it in my sitting room?”

At this, McGonagall bristled. “The Potters are fine people who care for Lily. And for the rest of your family, for the loss you've suffered and grief you've been through."

But Mrs. Evans kept going, "So how did it work - they used their son to find Lily? Tell her she's magic? Plant silly ideas in her head? Spy on her? What do you want with her?”

"It was a coincidence, Lily meeting the young Mr. Potter. Similar to her encounter with Mr. Snape here in Cokeworth."

Petunia's head snapped to Lily at that. 

A few months ago, she’d made Petunia go to the park with her to make sure Severus was a real person, but hadn't explained why. 

“I’m not playing pretend with you, Lily, I’m too old.”

“Sure. But you see a boy there, right?"

"Yes, the blonde holding hands with Nina. Do you fancy him?" Petunia’s tone had dripped with judgement. 

“No, not him. Behind those two, over by the swings. With the dark hair that’s kind of long."

"You fancy him? Lily, honestly... you could do better."

"No! I don’t. I just - I thought I was imagining him.”

Petunia had looked at her like she was insane, “Why would you imagine someone like that?”

Lily’d just shrugged. She didn’t mention the magic she thought she’d seen him do. If Petunia disliked the idea of magic, Lily wasn't going to bring it up.

Petunia had reassured her, “Well, yes, he’s real. Odd looking, but definitely real.”

“That boy was a wizard too?” Petunia asked, the accusatory thing in her tone filling the sitting room.

“Yes,” Lily answered.

Professor McGonagall pressed on, frustrated enough with the way the conversation was going that her voice was clipped and accent pronounced, “I admit, it it is unusual for people from non-magical families to interact with witches and wizards before they begin their schooling. But children spend time in parks, and Lily's magic is rather obvious to other magical people, and I suppose that children are not the best adherents to the International Statute of Secrecy."

Mrs. Evans was continuing to take the tact of anger and Professor McGonagall's explanations were not doing much to soothe her. "She's even stranger now than she was before, doing bizarre things left and right. Who’s to blame for this if not the Potters? You?”

"From what I understand she is a gifted child.” 

“And from what I understand, she is becoming a nut who believes in things that aren’t real!”

Professor McGonagall didn't respond, just took a deep breath and let silence overtake the room. 

“Mrs. Evans, I assure you that this is quite real. I urge you to consider what is being offered. Seven years of free education and boarding at a prestigious institution. We would be thrilled to have her.” 

She left instructions for how to get in touch with their final decision, and left the house. 

The next few days were miserable, with Mrs. Evans especially angry, Petunia particularly pinched, Lily downright despairing.

When her mother left the house, Lily rang James to tell him about the visit. 

He’d already heard about it — ‘Minerva’ had floo-called Mrs. Potter to fill her in, the volume of her recounting loud enough that it had drawn James out of his room.

“Oh, it was worse than that,” Lily explained, “She left out the bit where my mum freaked out and said you were a spy.” 

That got a big laugh from James.

“It’ll sort itself,” he said, confident. 

“I don’t see how,” Lily replied. She was being Eeyore again maybe, but not without reason.

It sorted itself in an unexpected way. Lily was offered a place at the Beneden School. This was surprising for a number of reasons, the main one being that she’d forgotten about her application. Thinking back, she remembered the headmistress of her primary asking her to apply, recalled the feeling that she’d done reasonably well on her tests and in her interview. But the truth was she’d been so desperately excited about Hogwarts that she hadn’t considered getting a place at another school. When the headmistress explained the offer, highlighting the bursary support, she was confused by the utter lack of reaction from Lily and Mrs. Evans. 

“This is really marvelous news. We’ve sent two girls there in the past few years and they both love it. I do hope Lily can accept.”

To Lily’s surprise, Mrs. Evans actually considered the offer. But even with bursaries, it was entirely unaffordable. 

Lily was despondent. She wanted to be angry, but couldn’t even fight with her mother about it. Instead, she spent a long few days biting her mouth so as to not burst into tears. On the third such day, Lily cross because she’d worried a sore onto her cheek, her mother stormed into her room, yelling, “Fine, fine!” 

Lily didn’t understand, they’d already turned down Beneden and the place had been given to another girl.

But her mother didn’t mean Beneden, she meant Hogwarts. 

“It’s free and you’ve got a place, so you’ll go. I don’t know why they want you. But if that’s what you want so badly, fine!” 

Lily could hardly believe it. She ran to the phone and called James. She was so excited that she could hardly get the words out. When she finally managed it, he roared so loudly that she dropped the phone.

“MUM! LILY’S GOING TO HOGWARTS!” She heard him shout.

Euphemia and James took turns shouting into the phone, Lily laughing so much it was hard to speak clearly, and they scheduled a day to shop for school supplies. 

On her way back up the stairs, she passed Petunia and pulled her into a hug. Petunia stiffened, Lily protested, “Tuney! Be happy with me!” 

She wrenched her body away from Lily. Voice hard, she mocked, “Oh yes, I’ll get right on that.”

Lily was so thrilled it barely made a dent in her enthusiasm. She drew herself a calendar, stuck it on her side of the bedroom, and began marking off the days with big, red X’s.

Summer passed quickly, Lily’s imagination carrying her through. Her mother instituted a ‘don’t talk to me about Hogwarts or the Potters or anything ‘magic’’ policy that suited her fine. She read and dreamed and waited.

====

On the appointed day, at the scheduled hour, as the clock struck noon, Euphemia came to fetch her. She walked up the front steps, her sturdy boots making solid sounds, and engulfed Lily in a hug that was full of everything she’d been missing since she moved to Cokeworth.

“Ready?” Euphemia asked, smiling down at her. “This will be jarring, but it’s a way of getting us to where we’re going in no time at all.” 

“Okay,” said Lily, nothing but eager to see Diagon Alley for herself.

And then she was being squeezed and crushed and it was just like that day she'd tried to run away from the snake and she very much missed being able to breathe. 

And then she was in an entirely different place. She hardly got air back into her lungs when she was being crushed again - James had all but tackled her. 

“James, let her breathe!” Euphemia reminded, so he let go and settled for what could only be described as hopping up and down beside her. Lily felt laughter bubble in her chest, but it was cut off as she took in the scene around her and gasped. It was stunning, better than she imagined, and she had imagined so, so much.

“Sorry to make you apparate first thing, dear, but Fleamont was called away unexpectedly and leaving James alone for anything more than a minute usually means trouble.” 

James was so happy he didn’t mind the put-down. “All very mysterious, huh Lily, my dad going ‘away unexpectedly’?” A grin split his face before he finished his joke, “Almost like he’s a spy,” he giggled.

“Of course,” Lily laughed, giggly herself, “all of you Potters are international super spies!” 

Euphemia looked at them like they were crazy. Maybe they were. “Who knew you two would get so much joy out of Minerva’s botched visit? I’ll let her know, it’ll make her feel better about it.”

“Oh, do! I liked Professor McGonagall so much. She was great. It wasn’t her fault, my mum being…” her smile faltered, “how she is.” 

“Maybe not your mother’s fault either. I’ve long said - families of muggle-born students should be told much sooner. Imagine all the inexplicable magic those parents see. It’s no wonder some of their reactions can be… fantastic.”

James looked pensive. Lily remembered the flowers that had filled her father’s sickroom as he ailed, more and more of them everyday even though Lily never went outside to pick any.

Euphemia patted her head. Lily, lost in her memories, tensed at the touch. “Alright, Lily?”

Lily shook herself, then nodded and smiled up at her, wanting to go back to having a fun, light day. And they did. It was the best day she could remember since her dad died. Her head was on a swivel, trying and failing to see everything Diagon Alley had to offer.

She and James were talking over each other and being so very silly that Euphemia looked hesitant to leave them on their own while she went to the bank. 

“Can you stay right here for ten minutes without getting kidnapped or arrested or setting something on fire?”

“Yes!” James assured her.

“Great,” Euphemia said, not looking entirely convinced, as she entered Gringotts.

James tried to explain magical money in her absence. He took the long way around, “There are galleons and sickles and knuts. Galleons are the best. My parents get galleons from our Gringotts vault sometimes. I’m not allowed to go inside anymore though because I ran away one time, ages ago. The goblins who found me were very cross and threatened to punish me with a dragon who eats rude boys. But I’m not rude. And unprovoked dragons won’t eat children.”

Lily was still trying to make sense of ‘goblins’ and ‘dragons’ when Euphemia rejoined them. 

“Both still in one piece? Not missing any fingers or toes?” James showed her his hands. “Very good, this could mean Florean’s later.”

Euphemia handed her a pouch that jangled. “Is this gold?” Lily asked, eyes wide as she examined the contents.

“Yes, for your Hogwarts supplies. And a little birthday gold, because we’ve missed the last few.”

“Birthday gold is the best, Lily, you can get whatever you want with it!” James encouraged.

Gold in hand, they shopped and shopped and shopped, visiting every wonderfully weird place that they passed.

Euphemia seemed to know someone in every store. “It’s like she’s Minister for Magic,” James said, like this happened all the time. 

On the whole, it was tremendously exciting and a bit overwhelming. She wondered if magical things would always feel that way. 

They left the alley and Euphemia led them to King’s Cross so that Lily would know where to find the Hogwarts Express. After she explained about Platform 9 3/4, “Don’t ask the attendants about it, they’ll make you feel silly, but it’s just here” and the barrier, “It’s perfectly safe, but you can watch others go through first if you’re nervous,” Lily felt confident she’d be able to get herself there. 

Lily handed most of her bags over - Euphemia offered to pack her new things and send them to school so she’d have less to travel with on September 1st - and hugged them goodbye. She thought she’d feel sad to leave, but she was buoyant with the day. Things felt different now. She had a wand - a magic wand that had made magic sparks when she’d held it! - and a book of magic - introductory magic, but still, magic - to take back with her to Cokeworth. And she’d be leaving for Hogwarts so soon. 

As the train began to move, Lily waived to James and Euphemia, and imagined herself on a different, more magical train.

Before she knew it, and before she’d finished her third re-read of Magical Theory, it was time to leave for school.

Naturally, Mrs. Evans picked the morning of September 1st to validate nearly all of Lily’s anxieties. Lily’s heart dropped as her mother grabbed her arms and yelled that she couldn’t go. She froze, consumed by the slowly dawning realization that she wasn’t going to get to learn magic, that she was going to be stuck here, that everything would remain just as unpleasant as ever.  
The something peculiar happened. Petunia stepped between them. She usually stayed out of the fighting, knowing there was no winning with their mother. But she was firm, rigid, as she took their mother’s hands off of Lily’s arms and guided her into her room. “It’s okay, Mummy. I’ll be right back.” She gently pushed the door up and turned to Lily. 

Lily, voice sounding strange to her own ears, echoed, disbelieving, “It’s okay, Mummy?!”

“It will be,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Just go, I can handle her.”

But Lily couldn’t leave. She knew, knew so deeply, that she couldn’t leave her sister, couldn’t force her to stay in this alone. She shook her head.

Lily’s refusal upset Petunia, who began to cry in earnest, “Go! Just go!” 

“Petunia, I can’t leave you with this.”

“She’ll be better without you here. It will be easier without you here. You upset her!”

“Maybe. But still, Tuney, I mean it; I can’t just leave you. Daddy wouldn’t want me to-”

Petunia cut her off, angry, “Oh, save it! All summer, you’ve wanted to go so badly. And now you think about me? When you have one foot out the door? No. Do me a favor and leave us both alone here! This thing you’ve got - it doesn’t mean that you’re special, or good! It means that you’re strange, and difficult to have around!”

“Petunia - ”

“No! Daddy didn’t know - he didn’t know about this part of you. If he had, he wouldn’t have said those things to you, he would’ve wanted you to leave, too. So, please, please, just give me that. Just leave!”

So Lily left.

The muggle transit to Kings Cross was brutal, her head swimming from her row. She felt that it was always this way. Something good might finally happen, and then her life would act up around it, and her experience of the thing would be completely changed. She had literally been counting down to this day, this moment. She had a tangible ticket away form her troubles in hand. Only she felt so miserable about her troubles just then that the escape felt dull and empty. Was she awful for leaving? Or would Petunia, who genuinely had a better time of things with their mum than Lily did, be okay? 

Her mind whirling, Lily missed her transfer. She righted herself quickly, but still barely made it onto Platform 9 3/4 before the warning whistle blew. With just enough time to spare a glance at the scene - so these were witches and wizards in action, taking in something celebratory, something bittersweet - Lily made it onto the train. 

Lily didn’t go looking for James. They’d planned to sit together, but she didn’t think she could feign excitement. No, she was pretty sure if he even ask how she was doing, she’d burst into tears. 

So Lily passed by full compartments, not scanning faces for the one familiar one, and walked until she found one that looked relatively empty. 

There was one person inside. He looked shy, pale, and a little sad. She thought they might be decently matched traveling companions. 

“Do you mind if I join you?”

He looked up and shook his head, “No, not at all.”

“Thanks. I’m Lily.”

“Remus,” his voice was soft, and she idly wondered if he was being quiet on purpose or just spoke that way. 

She supposed that she’d have the day to figure it out. First, she just wanted to calm down. 

Neither of them spoke for a while. She was trying to breathe and not cry because she hadn’t cried since her dad’s funeral and she wasn’t going to cry at anything less significant if she could help it.

Her thoughts turned to how much she missed her dad, even as she tried to push them away for her to review later, in private. An image of her dad, walking through Diagon Alley, awed; helping her pack, teasing her about the messy way she folded her clothes, asking if she could remember what things she was forgetting; walking her and Petunia to the platform, hugging her tight, telling her to be a good Lilibet and write often. Her getting on the train, full of happiness. 

She felt tears behind her eyes, and blinked hard to hold them back.

“Are you alright?” Remus asked.

She shook her head, still blinking back tears. When she found her voice, it was less strained than she’d feared it might be. “I’ve been wishing for this day for years. But it all feels rotten already.”

Silence followed her answer. She shouldn’t have said anything. She could’ve just pretended not to hear him, could’ve gone the whole day without speaking to him. 

Then he spoke, “I feel exactly the same.”

That surprised Lily. She opened her eyes and looked over at him. He was picking nervously at his sleeve. She really looked, almost staring at him, as she tried to place his remark. Lily saw something as deep as her own sadness reflected back at her. And what, she wondered, were the odds of that.

“Do you want to -”

“Not really -”

“Alright.”

They let each other be. 

After some time, a trolley came by, offering sweets. 

Remus eyed it hungrily.

“Sweet tooth?” Lily asked.

“Yeah. You?”

She shrugged. “I’m not so keen on magical candy. Got a nasty bean from a friend a few years ago.”

They split a huge bar of chocolate.

Remus broke off a chunk, popped it in his mouth, and promptly reassured her, “fink i’s jus’ normal chocolate.”

And whether it was the chocolate, physical distance from Cokeworth or emotional distance from her morning, Lily felt her spirits lift. 

She and Remus passed the afternoon reading and chatting; it was much better than the morose silence of the morning.

As the slant of light grew longer, James burst into the compartment. 

“Lily! Why didn’t you meet me on the platform? I’d nearly convinced myself that you’d missed the train. Was going to send mum to Cokeworth and everything!”

“Well, no need. I’m here.”

“I know!” He rocked on his heels, all energy, like maybe he was going to cheer or whoop or something. Then he noticed there was someone else in the compartment.

Lily introduced them, “Remus, this is my friend James. We used to be neighbors.”

James waved at Remus, “Good to meet you.” Then eyes back on Lily, “Isn’t this brilliant?”

She hesitated; Remus knew she’d been sad all morning. “Yes. I think it’s going to be.” She managed a smile, it even felt genuine.

James, as enthusiastic as she’d ever seen him, all but shouted, “We’re on the Hogwarts Express!”

He plopped himself down on her side of the compartment, facing her, eyes dancing. “We are now less than 400 days away from being able to play quidditch for Gryffindor.”

“I think you’re forgetting that talent will be required.”

Remus chuckled. She smiled at him.

“Nope, I’m just confident in our natural abilities. And look at my socks!” 

He pulled up on the legs of his trousers, revealing red and gold socks, sparkling, with Gryffindor Lions that alternated between roaring and shaking their manes.

They were garish and stupid, but she felt a surge of fondness for James, her enthusiastic, magical friend. A grin split her face. “Subtle.”

“Blimey. Imagine going into a different house with those socks on,” Remus mused.

Lily laughed.

James protested, indignant, "I won’t! I’ll be Gryffindor!”

“How do you know?” Remus asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.

“He doesn’t,” said Lily. And this was much better, teasing James, out from underneath the tired sadness of the morning.

James gasped, affronted, “Of course I do!”

“No, you’re just hoping,” Lily countered.

“Fine. I’m hoping that I’ll be in Gryffindor, and Merlin hoped he could transfigure a stone into a sword. What about you, Remus?”

“Oh I don’t care too much. I’m just happy to be going to Hogwarts.”

James didn’t buy it. “Balderdash. You’ve got to have one you like more than the others.”

“Not really.” He hesitated, then, “I just want to go somewhere I’ll be happy”

“That sounds nice, Remus”

“No, what sounds nice is Gryffindor. You see-”

Lily rolled her eyes, “You should leave now if you aren’t ready to hear forty minutes on the greatness of Godric himself,” she warned Remus.

He shrugged, “Might as well.”  
So James’ rant washed over the compartment.

A while later, two boys poked their heads in.

The dark haired boy exclaimed, “James, mate, we found it!”

The blond boy, slightly out of breath, huffed, “A hatch… it opens up to the roof.”

“Nice one.”

“Peter and I are gonna stick our heads outside, see what’s what, you in?”

“You’re a little mad, Sirius.”

“Maybe,” the dark haired boy allowed, grinning.

James hopped up. “Right, I’m off. Remus, see you later. Lily, a little something from home to tide you over until the feast.”

He handed her a package from Euphemia that contained slightly smushed treacle tart, and a letter. 

“Lily,

Hogwarts may take some getting used to, but it truly is a wonderful place. I know you’ll be fantastic there. And now that you can use the owl post, I expect a letter a week. Maybe more at the start…

To the moon, 

Euphemia”

Lily tucked the letter away, pocketing the warm feeling the impromptu care package gave her. Remus looked considerably happier than he had when she entered the compartment; she supposed she did too.

By the time they arrived in Hogsmeade, Lily should’ve been tired from a long, emotional day. But instead, the excitement that she couldn’t find earlier made its way into her stomach, her lungs, her bones.

As James joined her and Remus in a boat up to the castle, Lily was struck by the beauty of the ancient stones, illuminated by the bright moon and twinkling stars in the otherwise inky black sky.

====

Lily was glad for the excitement but could have done without the nerves. The sorting seemed daunting; a mandatory queue that she would rather not be in. 

Worse, when the hat was placed on her head, it said nothing. There was silence for what felt like an eternity, and in that eternity, Lily’s dour mood from the morning returned. She knew that she was going to be sent home, back to her cruel mother and weary sister.

Petunia would gloat - ‘See, your precious boy from the park was wrong about you, you’re just a silly girl who like flowers and playing pretend.’

No, she wouldn’t go back home. Maybe she could go live in one of the pretty meadows the train had passed; just make a hut out of the foliage and hide in the dew. She felt like she was going to cry right there - sitting on a stool in front of the entire school, a hat down over her eyes like a dunce, like a fool, all because she let herself believe in magic, let herself want it.

Then, a voice that was both above and inside of her head tutted at her. “You are most definitely magical. A pity about your family. Is that why you’re so sad, so young?” 

She wasn’t sure if she needed to speak to answer, if the people watching in the hall could hear the voice too. She hadn’t seen any other students speaking to the hat.

“No need to talk, I can sort through your thoughts just fine. And what thoughts you have! Much to consider.”

Can’t be much there, she thought.

“Nonsense. For starters, you are quite loyal. But not afraid to break away to better yourself. Some call that ambition. And that’s just the half of it. Brave, indeed, and intelligent too. Why, I’m certain you’ll do great things.”

Lily appreciated the compliments but couldn’t really enjoy them. She could practically feel the eyes of the students on her. Searching through the crowd, she could just make out the roaring lions on James’s socks. Only now they were sitting on their paws, looking anxious. 

“Not to worry. It is a mark of a great witch or wizard, for me to deliberate so greatly.”

The hat wasn’t exactly comforting though - a strange voice in her head - and she was eager to be rid of it. It felt like how she’d been ready to leave Olivander’s, if only to be free from his gaze. But that had lasted for ages as he spouted off a litany of odd things about her and James before making surprisingly mundane small talk with Euphemia.

“Fine - if you want it to be over with I’ll just pick one; how silly of the Sorting Hat, for wanting you placed properly!”

Sorry.

“It’s alright. New beginnings are often stressful. Do you have any ideas on where you’d like to go?”

Her and James running around his garden in red and gold capes, laughing, half-singing, half-shouting, “For that Grand Great Good Godric Gryffindor.”

Petunia, crying into her pillow, “I wish we could be happy, Lilibet.” 

Remus on the train, steady and hopeful, “Somewhere I’ll be happy.”

A new image of her, older and taller, hair clashing horribly with yellow robes, surrounded by friendship, light, and laughter.

“Yes, you might happiest in Hufflepuff… but is that what you want?”

What’s wrong with wanting to be happy?

“Nothing. But to put it above everything else, all your talents?”

Her father dying - her mother hating her - leaving the Potters - Petunia shouting at her and her shouting back, both so sad and angry —

“Well, if you appreciate the gentler stuff…”

The hat might have sighed if it had had lungs, but nevertheless bellowed, “HUFFLEPUFF!”

Professor McGonagall removed the hat from her head. She stumbled towards the Hufflepuff table, eyes down, ignoring the curious mumbling that echoed throughout the hall. The rest of the sorting was a blur, punctuated by only two things. The first, a playful tap from a smiling Lupin, Remus who said, “Budge over, will you?” and took a seat at her side. The second, a happy-sad jolt of feeling when the Sorting Hat shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!” just a little quicker, a little louder for Potter, James than it had for anyone else.


	3. Chapter 3

In the days and weeks the followed the sorting, James was beside himself. His hazel eyes were perpetually seeking her out, wide and a bit manic. 

“Do you need me to get you out of there?” he asked, as if Hufflepuff was not a house but a site of ritual punishment. “The hat took too long to decide; we can make them re-sort you! Mum will write Dumbledore - she knows him!”

“I’m fine with it, really. Can you be fine with it, too?”

“Of course,” James assured her, though his reflexive nose scratch gave him away.

Lily was nervous, immediately after her sorting, that because the hat hadn’t seen any house as a clear, obvious choice for her, she wouldn’t feel settled in Hufflepuff. But somehow she found herself feeling steadier then she had in years. 

The common room was just below ground, but it was bright and homey. The windows opened up like portholes on a ship and if you climbed a bit to sit on a high ledge, you could lay your palm flat on the earth of the Hogwarts grounds. There were all manner of magical plants hanging high from the ceilings that added to the lightness of the place. Lily’s favorite part was an open corridor leading to nowhere in particular that had a magnificent glass roof, charmed like the ceiling in the great hall, and housed rows and rows of planters. 

Thanks to James’s musing, his endless enthusiasm on the subject, Lily had always pictured herself in Gryffindor. But she was enjoying Hufflepuff well enough. Remus was there - a steady, calm presence. She was surprised by the ease of their friendship but glad for it all the same.

Lily saw James plenty. They ate together a few times each week, which was notable only because most people stuck to friends with matching robes. But every so often, she and Remus ate with the Gryffindors, or James (and, by definition, his new mates Sirius and Peter) sat with the Hufflepuffs.

Classes met in house groups, but she and James were lucky to have herbology together. It was the best class for talking. Lily loved the subject. Maybe she was a bit biased given that the new instructor, Professor Sprout, was Hufflepuff’s head of house. 

And James was always willing to study with her in the library or just sit near her while she read titles that caught her eye. The library was full of interesting books. Though after Lily had a whole cart on hold with Madam Pince, James declared that she just found everything magical to be interesting.

With no small amount of judgement, he said, “Honestly Lily, The Practical Potioneering Primer isn’t a hot read.”

Remus piled on, “And look, Transfixed: A Tedious Transfiguration Text hasn’t been checked out since the 30s.”

So she and James carved out space for their friendship even though, like most of Hogwarts, they socialized within their respective seas of red and yellow.

Gryffindor was a larger house than Hufflepuff, but there was never much chance of James getting lost in a crowd. He, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew were enjoying some measure of fame for the so-called ‘Hogwarts Express Escape Hatch Hitch.’ Apparently, Sirius and James very nearly lost hold of Peter during his turn hanging out of the escape hatch. The close brush with death and closer brush with expulsion - the Trolley Witch insisted on it, but couldn’t persuade Headmaster Dumbledore - had bonded them. 

James enjoyed the attention he was getting. He, Sirius, and Peter preened like three birds of paradise, glowing with the approval of the older Gryffindor boys. 

Lily had notoriety, too, but she disliked it intensely. She wished she could blend in, go slowly into this new thing, but instead she was followed by questions and whispers. Apparently her sorting had been some kind of modern record. But some of the interest that students had taken in her was tinged with judgement, skepticism. The rumors that made it to her ears were less than flattering. People were very curious that a ‘muggle born’ who went to ‘Hufflepuff, the worst of all the houses’ had ‘tricked the sorting hat’ into giving her the record.’ All the nonsense made her uncomfortable in a way she thought she’d left behind in Cokeworth.

The gossip, bothersome though it was, was not Lily’s least favorite thing about Hogwarts. That was, by far, her roommate Doris. Doris was the only other first year girl to be sorted into Hufflepuff, and she cried every night for the first month of school. Doris didn’t want to be comforted. Doris didn’t want to talk. Doris just wanted to cry. The older girls heard her from their rooms and took to calling her Little Myrtle. This just made her cry all the more, wailing, “I’m not called Myrtle!” 

When Doris left the school that November, Lily was glad for the quiet.

The solitude didn’t bother her much, partly because she had James and Remus, partly because it gave her a private space to study magic. But mostly because there was only one other person she wanted to make friends with.

Alice was a 7th year. Alice didn’t once question Lily about her sorting; she just welcomed her to Hufflepuff. Alice was Head Girl, not because she was a narc or brown-noser, but because she was the best student in the castle. Not in terms of marks, but in terms of being a good person.  
Her badge sat gleaming on her yellow robes, a reminder to those in other houses that Hufflepuffs had worth. Alice was what every Badger wanted to be - good, and respected for it. 

Alice really did seem to have the respect of everyone and everything at Hogwarts. When a rowdy Gryffindor started fighting a Ravenclaw during breakfast, she only needed three words to break it up. “Really, fist fighting?” The hulking 7th years stopped immediately, mumbling, “Sorry Alice,” and returning to their house tables. Even Peeves, who was a menace to all (especially to Hufflepuff first-years, and extra-especially to an oft-alone ‘ickle firstie’ as embarrassingly quick to blush as Lily), let Alice be.

Lily wanted to know how to be so… Alice. She watched her; the distorted view of a house cat observing a lion, maybe, but Lily was bewitched. 

Alice was near the top of her class, so Lily was too. Alice wore trousers sometimes, claiming they were better for long days than stockings and skirts, so Lily did too. Alice knew how to cast spells of equal strength with either wand-hand, so Lily learned too.

But for all of her hero-worship, she wasn’t prepared to talk to Alice. So when Professor Flitwick asked her to stay after Charms one day and Alice entered the classroom, Lily was nervous. 

“Ms. Evans, I think you’re a great candidate for dueling club. It’s not generally open to first years but I thought you might show off a bit for our Head Girl?” He dropped into a mock whisper, “She runs the club.”

Lily swallowed as many of her nerves as she could. They clambered around in her stomach. She closed her eyes, pretending she was alone in her dormitory, practicing. She pictured her old house, the empty bird-feeder outside her window, and cast her charm. A circle of hummingbirds fluttered and pulsed in a small circle around her. The room was quiet but for their gentle thrumming. 

Professor Flitwick looked touched; Lily was embarrassed to see tears in his eyes. Her focus pulled away from the charm, it lapsed, and the birds vanished. “Well, that’s a rather beautiful charm,” his compliment seemed genuine.

After a moment, Alice cleared her throat and spoke, “Advanced, too. You’re sure she’s a first year, Professor?” 

Alice gave Lily that praise easily, like it was no big deal. And it probably wasn’t to Alice; one of the many interactions she had every day; a simple compliment to dole out. But to Lily, it made her week.

What ruined Lily’s week was when she bled through her uniform skirt on the way to her first night of dueling club. 

Alice saw her in the hall, hurrying in the opposite direction of the classroom, “Coming to the meeting?”

“Er. Yeah,” she replied, not pausing or turning around as she yanked off her jumper and tied it around her waist. 

Lily ducked into a bathroom, cursed, then started to cry. That angered her even more - she didn’t want to cry! She hated when her body made it feel like she had no say in the matter. 

Alice walked in, and Lily wished she could vanish on the spot. She supposed her magic had limits, though, because all she managed to do was stand there, stricken, while Alice assessed her. 

She didn’t expect Alice to whip out her wand and quickly charm her problem away. Lily tried to stammer out a thank you, beyond mortified. 

Alice waved it off, “It’s nothing.”

Lily stayed quiet, still half-hoping she could go back in time and undo the last few minutes. 

“You’re muggle born, right?”

Lily tensed at the question. “Yes,” she ground out, defiant, wary. 

Alice spoke quickly, “Oh no, Lily, I’m not… All of the pure blood dung is just that, dung. What I mean is that I think you’ll find that magic offers more options for dealing with the demands of womanhood.”

Lily must have looked as lost as she felt. Alice took pity, “I’ll give you a booklist. You should read up on them, but they aren’t first year spells, so you can come to me with any questions, okay?”

“Why are you being nice to me?”

Alice didn’t seem to understand the question. 

“People are never nice for no reason,” Lily clarified. 

Alice eyebrows knitted at that. “I don’t think that’s true. Besides… it’s not easy, starting Hogwarts.”

“No,” Lily agreed. “The Doris thing was a bit of a disaster. The sorting rumors are getting a bit mean, I think, and old. And now this.”

“This was nothing,” assured Alice, “just something that happens to all of us sooner or later. But… I know what it’s like when half of the castle won’t stop talking about you. I don’t think I would’ve been able to handle all that as a first year. I thought you could use a friend.”

Lily froze. Alice wanted to be her friend? Or she was speaking generally, hypothetically?

Alice’s watch sang, ‘time-time, time-time, tiiiiiimmme!’ She silenced it, then asked bracingly, “What do you say, time to duel?”

Lily nodded, let Alice guide her out of the bathroom and walk her towards dueling club. When they joined the group a few moments later, it was a strange feeling. Yes, eyes were on them and voices floated their way, but none of it was in judgement. All of it was in greeting, in welcome. Lily thought it was lovely to be treated like Alice.

=======

Apparently Headmaster Dumbledore belonged to the half of the castle that spoke about Lily. James told her that when Dumbledore owled Euphemia about James’s train hijinks, he asked her what she thought of Lily’s unusual sorting. “But Mum told him she wasn’t surprised - she knows you’re special.” 

“I’m not. Not anymore; not here, with other magical people,” Lily protested.

“Yeah, you are.”

“Well… I don’t want to be.”

James laughed. “Alright,” he allowed, and because he was a true friend, James treated her like normal, like herself.

But a few months into the school year, Lily’s teachers began to treat her differently. In some ways, it was like primary school, only there Lily had known all of the answers and at Hogwarts she knew very few of them. She listened in her classes and practiced in her dorm and read in her free time, but she knew that no amount of school work could turn her into someone who had grown up with the certain expectation of witchcraft or wizardry. The result was an uncomfortable feeling that she might at any moment be called out, talked up, shown off, only to fall flat on her face. 

Professor Flitwick was rather sweet about it all. Lily got the impression that Flitwick felt some claim to her, having been the first of her professors to note any of her magical promise. He gave Lily extra assignments and spoke with her after dueling club on nights he attended, but he didn’t make her perform for others during class. 

Professors Sprout and McGonagall both let on that they were fond of Lily. Sprout, she understood, being her head of house. Plus, Lily had some natural affinity for plants - altering flowers and weeds had, after all, been the first magic she’d consciously done. McGonagall’s favor made a little less sense. Lily didn’t feel that she was particularly talented at transfiguration. She chalked it up to McGonagall’s closeness with the Potters.

Lily did not expect Professor Slughorn’s niceties. He was head of Slytherin house, from where the very meanest whispers about her seemed to come. But Slughorn doted on her more than any other professor. Frankly, his booming praise was the only thing she disliked about potions. But there was nothing to be done for it, because Professor Slughorn was the expert and Lily was curious about the subject.

He stood in front of her cauldron one day, hands resting on his impressive stomach, tone amused. “Lily, do you enjoy potions?”

“Yes, very much,” she allowed. 

Charms was probably her favorite subject - it felt like a gift to wave a wand and make something beautiful or useful happen. Lily suspected that potions, if less likely to result in beauty, might be the most useful subject they were being taught. 

She dreamed of being a potions master, able to fix all manner of problems with a wand and a cauldron. Sometimes her mind wandered as she let a potion brew and she would see a surreal scene — herself as a grown-up standing in her father’s bedroom, giving him a bright green vial that healed him entirely. 

“Good.” Looking pleased, Slughorn invited her to apply for a pilot potions program being sponsored throughout Europe to promote collaboration and research among promising students.

Some weeks later he found her, beaming, “Of course they accepted you! They’d have been fools not to.”

Lily blushed, but some small part of her must have agreed with him, or at least wanted to prove him right. She spent a few extra hours in the dungeons each week, making herself good at yet another new thing.

=======

So Lily had James and Remus, dueling club and the new potions program, and the business of being a first year at Hogwarts. 

James moaned and groaned that first year was a waste, that the only club he was interested in was quidditch, that it was criminal he couldn’t join for another year.

If she was busy with potions or studying, he prodded her, “You’ll turn into a ghost, let’s go outside, there’s this thing called ‘the world’ and lots of it is above ground.”

She prodded him right back. “You’ll forget how to walk, let’s do something other than fly for once, there’s this thing called ‘the world’ and it helps to have your feet firmly planted in it.” 

Most days Lily walked around happy, if slightly skeptical that all that good feeling would fly away from her at any moment. 

One of her obsessions was learning as much about the castle as possible.

Hogwarts was a school, of course, and she knew it would have to be a certain level of safe, stable, to be a place where so many people lived. But the staircases moved, the paintings talked, the statues socialized. Lily felt sure that the castle was a fluid thing, that it must have many, many layers to it. 

She wondered if there were things it was hiding. She wondered if she would even be able to know if she encountered any of those hidden things. Bathilda’s book hinted that the castle was in many ways unknowable; that perhaps the fortification of the deepest, truest parts of magic was the preservation of mysticism. In other works, Bagshot wrote about ruins that erased memories, lodestones littered with unreadable glyphs, ancient wonders that could not be accurately photographed or described.

James humored her theories and used her obsession as an excuse to wear his invisibility cloak. He loved it - it had been his eleventh birthday present - and was proud of it. Lily agreed that it was just about the coolest thing ever. About once a week James would stand by the kitchens under the cloak, she would leave the Hufflepuff common room, and they’d stay out for hours, exploring the castle. Lily started with a notebook, writing down her observations like a good spy, but soon realized a schematic, a map, would be more helpful. The first Hogsmead weekend, James paid off older Gryffindors to bring him back sweets and they stayed under the cloak for hours, and mapping out more of the first floor in one day than they’d managed in the months prior. 

Much of the rest of her free time was spent humoring James’s obsession with quidditch.

James claimed to be a natural, and maybe he was, but mostly it was clear he flew a lot, dreamed of being great at quidditch and was in the process of making himself just that. 

Lily was much newer to it, and a little disbelieving that the broom would always follow her, but she enjoyed flying. And James was a decent instructor. “You’re always in control, that’s the thing to remember,” he repeated a hundred times that first fall at Hogwarts.

There were lots of things he wanted her to remember. Some of James’s advice Lily already knew from the football and tennis she’d tried at school. She understood that you always have more time than you think to get to the quaffle; that you should play the whole pitch instead of following the quaffle; that you should pass the quaffle decisively. But she struggled to grasp the concept of vertical motion no matter how many times James yelled, “people can fly above or below you, too, you know!”

She knew competing against James was making her better, so gamely accepted loss after loss. When he said, “that one was closer, really,” she knew he meant it as a genuine complement. 

Still, Lily was no match for him at one-on-one chaser drills. And when James took to soaring over or under her, whooping boastfully, she’d had enough. No one likes a showoff, and he was such a bad winner. 

She refused to play with him for a while. He pleaded, going on about how Peter was awful at quidditch and wouldn’t play because James told him so and made him cry, “I mean it, he cried, it was dreadful.”

Sirius wouldn’t play because he claimed Quidditch training would detract from his ambition to piss off his parents by becoming a muggle sports star. Lily wondered if it was more; maybe it was out of solidarity with Peter, or a desire not to lose to James. Those boys had a dynamic that was both so, so simple - three good mates - and a little more complicated. James saw himself as the leader of their little group, but it was hard for her to tell if he really was.

James got Remus to join, sometimes, but he had asthma so couldn’t play too often. It was strange because when his asthma wasn’t bad, he was super athletic, nearly as good as James. But then he’d have an off day or week, and would get pale and sick. 

After he missed a few days of classes - days in which Lily hadn’t seen him at all - Remus came down to the common room. She gave him notes from the days he’d been out, and some advice. “Honestly Remus, quidditch isn’t worth it if it makes you this sick. Don’t let James bully you into doing it.”

But James had no problem whining, or begging, and he tried to bully her into doing it. “Lily, Lily, Lily,” he’d start, and it was like a quidditch obsessed bee followed her around the castle. She couldn’t swat it, or it would get angry and buzz louder. But ignoring the incessant buzzing was starting to feel impossible. Lily realized if she let the bee sting her, maybe it would die and leave her alone.

“Fine! But no more chaser drills. You want to be captain one day, right? So teach me the others, keeper and batter and sneaker.”

“Keeper and beater and seeker,” he corrected, grumpy.

That night, James brought bats to the pitch. “You seemed angry. Here.” 

It was the most fun Lily had ever had playing quidditch. 

“This one! I’m this one! Batter!”

“Beater! That means I’m your target.”

“Brilliant,” and it was, Lily aiming at James, him dodging and bragging, her getting angrier and angrier, more and more focused until she hit him. 

First years had inter-house flying lessons twice a month, but those lessons were much more basic. James claimed to find them dreadfully boring. Lily herself admitted that after all of the flying with James, they were a bit redundant. But she entertained herself like a normal person, reciting digits of pi in her head. She heard James had found a much more disruptive way to entertain himself - mocking Slytherins. Apparently, Severus Snape looked quite out of place on a broom and James, Sirius, and Peter had found a number of creative ways to describe his awkwardness to him. They recounted what they deemed their greatest hits at breakfast. Lily wasn’t amused. 

“You lot think you’re really funny, huh?” she tried.

“Yep!” said Peter, pleased.

“No Lily, we know we’re really funny,” Sirius assured her.

“Yes, especially me - I’m a very funny spy,” James glanced at her, grinning. She didn’t laugh. He dimmed.

=======

Lily absolutely preferred Hogwarts to home, but still felt guilty about how she had left Petunia. A few months into the year Lily wrote to her, instructing a school owl to take her letter to the Inverness post office so it would reach her house via normal means. 

‘Tuney - 

I hope things are bearable in Cokeworth. The only things I miss from home are you and maths. If you want to send any of your problem sets back to me, I’ll work the problems for you. I could use the practice. What’s four times four, again? Twelve? 

\- Lilibet’ 

Petunia’s response consisted of no words, just a problem set covered by a sheet of paper that read ‘Due Next Thursday’ in her handwriting. Lily did them in twenty minutes and sent them back the next morning. 

=======

That first year, Lily was returning books to the library when she saw Severus, sitting on his own, staring at her. 

They hadn’t talked at school and had only ever spoken a few times in Cokeworth. Lily told him that yes, she was magic; no, her family wasn’t; yes, she knew about Hogwarts. They each knew the other was poor, but so were most people in town.

She approached him, “Can I sit?”

His eyes had darted away from her, like he hadn’t been watching her. He looked at his notes, up at her, back at his notes, “Sure.”

“Glad to be away from Cokeworth?” she asked.

“Naturally.”

A pause. She was going to let him speak.

“And are you?” he inquired. 

“Yes, very much so. Even thinking of hiding in a cupboard over the summer. Hundreds of them here, so there must be one that’s empty,” she mused. 

Lily had been sad to learn that there was no option for a summer term, no students permitted to stay in the castle. She’d avoided going home for the holidays and been rewarded with a blissful fortnight. But now her stomach squirmed when she thought too much about home, how things would be this summer.

Severus’s mouth curved, “I’ve heard worse ideas.” 

No one spoke. It was uncomfortable enough that she began to plan her excuses to leave.

“So you’re talented, then,” he said, abrupt.

“Sorry?”

“Your sorting. And you’ve been invited to join Dueling Club.”

“Er-” a little thrown by Severus’s consideration of her. “I guess so. I don’t really… it’s all new to me. It’s not like I understand how anything works here.”

She tried not to let it bother her, but she knew most students had tons more information than she did, the kind that only came from growing up around magic.

After a moment he said, “My mother is a witch, so I know certain things. One of those things is that the boys you are friends with - James Potter, Sirius Black - are from very old, very wealthy families.”

“Okay…” not sure where he was going.

“These families can be mean,” he said, intense. “The Black family, in particular. Though Potter seems the meaner of the two.” He looked at her, skeptical, assessing. “I’m not sure why they’ve sought you out. Maybe they’re curious about you. I’d say they’re using you, but they’re Gryffindors.” 

He trailed off. Lily didn’t interject, processing what he was saying, interested to a point. No one had yet spoken to her so bluntly of power, social status, but she knew it must exist below the surface. She wondered if in Slytherin, it was the surface, all the sinews bared and exposed. 

Then he asked, cool and calm, “Is it possible that befriending you has been a dare to them?”

For a moment, she could see it, what Severus was describing, but then she remembered - James wasn’t just some new classmate. He was her friend, had been for years. “No, sorry, I don’t think-”

He cut her off, “I know it sounds cruel. I’m not questioning you. I understand why someone would want to be your friend. It’s them that I don’t understand.”

He’d been transparent with her, showing his reasoning, so Lily gave him a piece of the puzzle. “What you’re missing is that I know James. I used to live near him. We’re friends.”

Severus froze, made his mouth so small that he looked almost angry. It was uncomfortable.

“Lily!” It was Alice, suddenly beside the table, taking their attention. “Can I borrow you?”

Alice led her to prefect’s lounge. “Sorry - I wanted you to have an out. Did you need one?”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

“Was he bothering you?”

“No, not really. He’s my neighbor. But we don’t talk at home, and don’t talk here, and he’s just… tense.”

“Seemed like it,” Alice agreed. “Well, I’m going to work in here. You’re welcome to stay if you want the privacy.”

Lily smiled, “You think I’d be sick of it, having the dorm to myself, but I’m really not.”

So Lily wrote an essay, and Alice made a prefect chart, and Lily sat with the thought that Alice had checked to see if Lily, her friend, looked comfortable or not.

A while later, the head boy stopped by. He was called Frank, and he was on the Gryffindor quidditch team. 

James thought he was cool and had tried to talk strategy with him, hint at a need for a new chaser in what Lily warned was a super transparent plan. But James hadn’t listened, had insulted Frank’s mates, referring to them as ‘barnacles on broomsticks.’ Frank had told him off. Lily endured much grumbling about Frank in the weeks that followed, such that she was pretty sure she’d built up a vague, low level resentment of him.

But Alice spoke with Frank and looked like she’d pet a unicorn. Frank looked pretty overjoyed too. He left quickly, hadn’t seemed to notice Lily was there.

Alice actually smiled to herself. Lily felt it was very big of her not to comment on it. But she couldn’t school her expression. Alice saw. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“No,” Lily was unconvincing.

Alice hid her face. “Merlin. It’s so… cliche. Head girl in love with the head boy. Swotty girl with a crush on the jock.”

“You’re not swotty -”

“- sorry Lily, but I don’t think you’re a great judge of that -”

“- and Frank’s hardly a jock. He’s the third best chaser on the third best house quidditch team.”

“I… it’s barmy that I’m somehow offended on his behalf.”

“No, it’s… sweet?”

Alice snorted. “You look pained.”

“I just don’t have much to say on the topic. Petunia doesn’t talk to me about boys. I’ve only ever had one crush - a boy from drama, and I think it was more that he was good at singing.” Lily blushed, but kept talking, “He was fourteen and all the older girls fought over him. He knew I liked him. He was nice about it. This past summer, we had a duet together. At the party after the show, the girls were swarming him. And he turned around in the middle of all of them and snogged his friend Gareth. The older girls went into the corner and cried. But I was just happy for him. That he got what he wanted. So if Frank is what you want. You should… maybe not snog him in the middle of a crowd. But. You know. Go for it.”

“What if I go for it and he doesn’t feel the same way?” 

“Then he’s a bloody idiot.”

“Blimey, Lily. Are you sure you’re twelve?”

She shrugged, “I feel like I’m sixty.” 

Alice laughed and laughed and laughed, “Sixty?” 

“Not a day older, mind you-” Lily managed, before Alice’s laughter caught up with her. 

=======

When Lily got called a mudblood, she didn’t know what it was exactly, only that it was bad. This she got from the victorious, angry look on McNair’s face; the way everyone in earshot turned around, holding their breaths.

Lily walked away, wanting no part of the anticipatory air, and Remus followed her.

Alice found them in the common room, plainly furious. She assured Lily that he had been disciplined. “I hope his mates think talk like that is funny when they see they’re bottom of the table for the house cup,” she spat, and Lily realized that Alice had a protective streak in her.

Alice and Remus were so nice to Lily, but it made her feel worse, on edge, fragile.

James met her in the kitchens that evening. “Those idiots aren’t worth a damn. Blood doesn’t matter.”

“It feels like it matters. The way everyone has reacted. You, being serious about it.”

“What matters is that you know that it’s rubbish,” he said, waiving his teaspoon for emphasis.

She sighed, sipped her hot chocolate, feeling sad and small and out of place. She looked back at him a minute later, James had put marshmallows up his nose, was making a silly face her. “What are you doing?”

“Not being serious about it,” he said, nasal, like it was obvious, before blowing the marshmallows out into his mug.

By the time she was called to Dumbledore’s office a few days later, she couldn’t take two steps without hearing the word. People seemed to take seeing her as some cue to start retelling the story in the world’s loudest whispers. Lily was beyond sick of the attention. She felt gross, and that had been McNair’s point, hadn’t it?

Lily trudged up to Dumbledore’s office. To her surprise, Euphemia was there. 

She stood up, pulled Lily into a hug. “James wrote. I’m so sorry you have to deal with this bollocks. But that’s all it is. Bollocks.”

Lily should’ve been embarrassed to hear that in front of her headmaster, but Dumbledore was giving them a gentle smile and Euphemia had fire in her eyes, so she let herself be comforted. 

She bade Euphemia goodbye, was about to leave, when Dumbledore asked her to stay.

“A quick chat, I think.”

She was suddenly nervous.

“I have received unanimous reports from your teachers. The curriculum is too easy for you.”

“No, sir.”

“Do you find your classes easy?”

“I find that school has many challenges.”

“Naturally. But coursework is not among them.”

Lily didn’t want to be herded into advancing. She spoke slowly, clearly, “I enjoy magic. Learning it… It’s school, so I go to class and do my homework and study, but it also feels like the only way to understand more about myself. It’s… I can’t be the only muggle-born student to feel this way, like magic holds so many answers about who they are. But if I’m being too eager, if I’m ruining my classes - ”

“That is not what I’m implying. Your enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. But I see a very bright student who needs more engaging academic material.”

Lily didn’t respond - she knew what was coming next.

“Do you wish to advance a school year?”

“No.”

Dumbledore gave a quiet chuckle. “That was a very fast ‘no,’ Ms. Evans.”

“I was asked at my primary school, if I’d like to advance. I declined.”

“Why?”

His eyes, bright and probing. She didn’t feel like she’d be able to get out of telling him. She wasn’t going to say ‘because my sister would have gone insane.’

Instead, she picked the other truths, “I want to go through school with my friends. I get enough attention as it is, without being the odd one out in my year. Besides, I don’t want to return home while I am still underage.” 

He assessed her over steepled fingers. 

She knew he was going to ask about he home life now. So she spoke before he could, “What about other options? I’m in Professor Slughorn’s extension program. Do more subjects have enrichment?”

He sighed, “very well.”

It was decided that she would start her electives a year early. 

She left feeling like she had batted away a bludger. 

=======

Exams were approaching, and it was a beautiful night. The bitter chill in the air was gone, and it was the kind of air that made you want to skip, or do cartwheels.

James made plans with her and Remus to fly, but Remus didn’t show. She and James carried on without him.

When Lily returned to the common room she found Remus looking sick and pale, asleep in a large armchair. She sat next to him and started to revise for transfiguration. 

A while later, he woke up.

“Oh bugger. I fell asleep?”

“It’s alright Remus.”

“No it’s not. I’m a bad friend.”

“You really aren’t. But I am concerned about you. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

Well, that was a lie. He fell ill often, seemed perpetually exhausted. She stayed quiet. 

Remus tried again, “I just don’t feel well.”

“Alright. I get that.”

He looked miserable.

“I don’t want to make you feel worse, I just want to understand what’s upsetting you, help you fix it—”

With a note of panic, of despair, “It can’t be fixed!”

He stood, maybe to storm back to his room, but she hadn’t seen him for days, so reached for his arm. “Okay.” He seemed less likely to bolt, she let go, continued, “Neither can the quidditch final, now that Slytherin’s out. Who do you like to win?”

Supposedly some wealthy Slytherin donors had paid for the cup a few years back, if Frank’s ramblings were even half-true. The final would be an offensive Ravenclaw versus a stout Gryffindor side. 

“Don’t we have to root for Gryffindor?”

“Why?”

“James.”

“Nah. I have half a mind to paint myself blue just to see him go mad over it.”

Instead, they all wore yellow head to toe and sang Hufflepuff chants the whole match. The team was thrilled - they’d been sore not to be contenders this year. She thought Sprout might have a tear in her eye. 

James found them after the match, a scandalized look on James’s face, “Alice is the only one of you lot with any bloody sense!”

She’d worn Gryffindor scarf, and when the lions won, ran down to the pitch and jumped Frank.

========

And just like that, Lily’s first year of school was ending. James and Sirius and Peter spent the last few weeks more determined than ever to woo Peeves, get him to along with their pranks. They ran around smelling of sweat and dung bombs.

Eupehmia’s first words to James off the train were, “I hear you’ve spent more time in detention than out of it.”

He crinkled his nose, “not quite.”

She ruffled his hair, then turned to Lily, pulled her into a hug, “And I hear you’re a delight.”

Lily blushed under the praise, "not quite."


End file.
